Investigation of the citizenship perceptions of convicts and prisoners in prison

The purpose of this research is to determine the level of citizenship perception of the convicts and prisoners in the Sakarya L type closed penitentiary institution and to determine their perception of citizenship according to various variables. The research was conducted in accordance with the relational screening model of quantitative research methods. It is a descriptive research. The study group consisted of 352 inmates who were convicted and detained in different types of offenses. The "Citizenship Perception Scale" developed by Kaya (2013) was used as data collection tool. The scale is classified as 3 sub-dimensions: liberal citizenship, republican citizenship and global citizenship. The data obtained from the study were analyzed by using SPSS 20.0 package program. Firstly, to test whether the data were distributed normally, the scatter, skewness statistics and Kolmogorov-Smirnow tests were performed. Since the data were found to be normal distributed, parametric tests and single factor variance analysis (One-way ANOVA) tests were performed. According to the results of the study, the perceptions of the participants on the level of liberal citizenship were high and the perceptions of republican citizenship and global citizenship were at the highest intermediate level. When the sub-dimensions were analyzed according to various variables, gender was found as a significant variable for the republican citizenship sub-dimension. In addition, the average score of the participants, who did their military service, for the liberal citizenship sub-dimension was found significantly higher than the average scores of the participants, who did not do their military service. Furthermore, the mean score of the /psychological drug users for the republican citizenship sub-dimension were significantly higher than the average score of the ones who did not. Also, the mean scores obtained from the global citizenship sub-dimension of psychological drug users were found significantly higher than the average scores of the participants who did not. When the effects of the other variables such as age, level of education, marital status variable, type of crime variable, length of stay in penal institutions on citizenship perceptions was examined, it was reached that these variables were not statistically significant on citizenship perceptions and its sub-dimenisons. Visual and auditory themes about citizenship should be used in basic trainings for the prisoners and citizenship awareness should be placed on perceptions of prisoners. In addition, further studies are needed to extend the scope by conducting in-depth, detailed research in penal institutions. Key Words: Citizenship, level of citizenship perception, penal institution